Chapter 38

Wednesday was better than the last two days. I could do all my exercises. I was really stiff when I started but it worked out. I was in full-blown Technicolor now. When I went over to Dicks for our run he met me at his door and told me to come in.

“Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“About Paul Grant,” Dick replied.

“What about Paul Grant?”

“He was killed last night, apparently in a gang war.”

“What!”

“He and the two guys with him were gunned down as they were getting out of their car to go to a fashion show. It was in a parking garage. It is being compared to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Someone used a machine gun on them.”

“A Tommy gun,” I asked.

“It was an L2A1 Patchett submachine gun. I have never heard of them. They shoot a nine millimeter. Apparently, they were riddled like Bonnie and Clyde. The police say it was a professional hit, the weapon had been totally wiped down, and the shell casings had no fingerprints.”

“They did find a kilo of heroin in the car. They think Grant was doing business with one of the mobs. There has been a low-level fight going on for a while. It appears to be going hot now. At least you have an iron-clad alibi for last night. After your exchanges with Grant, you would have been a suspect.”

“Who were the other two guys?”

“I think you may have met them, Boots Moran and Tiny Thompson. They were the gang that always followed him around.”

“Oh.”

While we ran I tried to wrap my head around events. It seemed so unreal. There was no question the guy had been a thug, but a drug dealer and member of the mob! I think I was very lucky to be alive.”

The set was alive with speculation as almost everyone there knew Grant. I never knew how much he was disliked until people started talking. But then again it was all after the fact.

The biggest question everyone had, whose show would replace The Outlaw Kid. It had a strong cleaning detergent sponsor that everyone would be chasing. I was starting to get a feeling about this predatory industry.

The Germans have a word, “Schadenfreude,” which seems to cover this situation, pleasure at the misfortune of others. If others are suffering then maybe you will benefit from their suffering. This event was more than the other team fumbling the football.

We still managed to get our shoot in. We finished at eleven-thirty. There were two detectives from the Burbank police department waiting for me. They were polite, but they had several questions for me at the request of the New York Police Department.

The lead Detective a guy named Friday, started with, “Since it was an early evening I assume you were home by yourself and no one saw you from the time you left the studio till you arrived this morning.”

“Not correct at all Detective. Someone called in a false alarm at our apartment complex last night and at least twenty people can testify I was there. Besides, how could I get to New York and back within that time period?”

“Oh, so you think this is about Paul Grant’s death?”

“I don’t know what else it could be.”

“Well, you are correct. The NYPD worked out that a jet could’ve got you there and back within those hours.”

I saw Dick Wyman walking by, so I waved him over.

“Dick, please tell these gentlemen, what occurred at the apartment complex last night.”

“Dick proceeded to talk about the false alarm. He named half a dozen people that we had talked to. I’m glad he remembered their names, I had just met them.

Detective Friday thanked me for my time.

“As a formality, we will check with the apartment office, but it looks like you are in the clear. By the way, I liked your appearance on Jack Paar.”

I had a quick lunch at the studio cafeteria. Their food was actually good. High School food wasn’t bad in Bellefontaine, but you could tell the day of the week by what was on the menu. Here there was a real variety of tasty food. I mean you could have pizza, tacos, hot dogs, or barbeque sandwiches for lunch! What’s not to like?

In Biology, we had a project. Nina and I had to write down our parent’s eye colors and ours, and then we had to predict what color the eyes of our children would be. Brown was the prediction, but that wasn’t the issue. When we talked about what color our children’s eyes would be we both blushed and had trouble making eye contact. To say we were embarrassed would be putting it mildly.

The rest of our time was strangely quiet. I suspect Nina was thinking about being married, having a home and raising children. Naturally, I was thinking of making children. Anyway, that assignment killed our conversation for the day.

Back at the set, the conversation was still about Paul Grant’s being murdered. The more news that was released the more it seemed he was a heavy-duty dealer. From the reports, he was dealing drugs before his TV career.

The gang war theory gained momentum, when two members of the gang, that most likely killed him and his friends, were found shot to death. It looked like a war was underway.

In the meantime, I was able to do all of my exercises. My swordplay was starting to get reflexive. I didn’t have to think about the moves, I just did them. Sammy who was teaching me told me that next week I would practice against him. I now had the strength to hold the sword, at least a good start, and I knew the moves. Now I had to learn when to make them.

At the gym Mr. Palmer had me working out with the light bag. After that, he showed me how to punch through on the heavy bag. He told me that it would still be several weeks before he would let me in the ring to spar.

I checked back at the set when I was finished. It was a good thing that I had. They had some night scenes they wanted to do. They were simple but needed me. We ended up finishing at ten o’clock. I stopped at the In-N-Out on the way home and called it a night.

Thursday morning Dad called before I left for the studio. First of all Grand Mum was okay.

As Mum put it, “Aunt Dell got her knickers in a twist.”

Mum would be staying for a week to visit. It had been ten years since Mum had been back to England, I was glad she had this opportunity and even happier that the Grand Mum that I really didn’t know was alright. I hoped to see her this summer.

At the studio, it was work, work, and more work. Funny when I started acting it was like a vacation from school. Now it was more like a job, a very well paying job, but still a job. The part that I really liked was working with the stuntmen.

They were willing to teach me all the cool things that they did. It was the best part of the day. Well, I really enjoyed my time with Nina, but it was still school. Maybe we would have some real fun this Saturday.

We did film a neat scene. Sir Nick had a run-in with the Hole in the Wall Gang. It was some gunfight. It was really interesting how they made it seem real. I had seen real people die from gunfire so I knew what it was like, which is nothing like the movies.

Even the fistfight I had with two of the bandits was so much different than when I was jumped at the apartment. I wonder how many actors had never run into the real thing, so they thought this was real.